The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: Only God knows what's up ahead. Don't wait until up ahead comes. Turn to God now and let him restore your resources and restore your blessings.

Guest (Male): Welcome once again to The Healing Word. This is a ministry of the Largo Community Church. On the program today, Pastor Jack Morris is going to take us to Genesis chapter 21, where we read about Hagar, the servant woman of Abraham's wife Sarah, who took part in a plan to move ahead of God's timing in providing an heir to Abraham. As things started to go very wrong, it looked like the situation was hopeless for Hagar, until God steps in.

Pastor Jack Morris: When God steps in. And he's ready to step in this morning, I know that. He is ready to step in and to make himself known, his presence known in your situation. We're going to look at Hagar. We're going to drop back a little bit earlier in the story of Abraham and see what happened a little earlier on.

I've taken it out of the order in which it was presented in the Bible, which it is presented in the word, but the Holy Spirit has been speaking to my heart. And he tells me, listen to me friends, he tells me, he has told me, he is telling me now that he wants to show you great and mighty things that you know not about.

He wants to show them to me also. He wants to reveal himself in a great way, very much like he revealed himself to Hagar. Listen to his word, hear his word and know this, that God is right there, right standing on the edge, ready to step into your situation. What is your situation that you need God in? Think about it. Here he comes by the power of the Holy Spirit to make himself known. And when God steps in, things change every time for the better.

Abraham had two sons. The first son's name was Ishmael. The second son was Isaac. Now, God a long time ago had spoken to Abraham and Sarah and told them that he was going to give them a son. It would be Abraham's son and Sarah's son. And as I've said in other sermons, this was the son through which the Messiah would eventually come.

Well, they waited and waited. Now, think about how long have you been waiting for your answer? And they waited. Well, they became impatient just like we do sometimes. And Sarah came up with an idea. Abraham thought it was okay and a good idea. She said, "Here, you take my slave girl, Hagar. You have relations with her. When she becomes pregnant and has a son, I will take that son because it's your son and I will keep that son as our son. And this will be the one that God has ordained."

Isn't it something how we figure it all out for God and we know what God needs? And we give God good advice? And it all sounds maybe legitimate in the beginning. And so Abraham thought this was a good idea. This was a nice-looking lady, this slave girl. So, I'll meet with her. She'll have a son. It'll be our son. We're too old now. We've got to move on this thing. We're running out of time.

Well, after a period of time, when God's time came, then God brought forth Isaac. Sarah became pregnant. She had a beautiful little baby boy. And when the baby boy was weaned, Abraham was so happy, he threw a great party. Why, he was an extremely rich man and there was never a party in all the land like he had when his son Isaac was weaned. Well, the other boy, the older boy, the half-brother, Ishmael, began to mock little Isaac.

Now, I've wondered as I've read this story, did Hagar put her son up to that? Hagar said, "Hey, he didn't give you a party. He didn't give my son a great party like this, and you're his son. He's your dad also." And so she may have instigated this. I don't know. You ever feel like you want to instigate a little trouble? Get something going? Or straighten something out that you think it needs to be straightened out? Well, this is what may have happened.

But at any rate, we do know this: that one boy was jealous of the other boy and he began to mock the boy. Well, Sarah saw what the half-brother was doing to her son and she became very angry. Well, she called Abraham in and she said, "You get rid of that woman." "Hey, you told me to have sex with that woman. Now you want me to get rid of the woman?" "You get rid of her and that boy because that boy will not be part of the inheritance that God has for my son."

Well, Abraham, the scripture, the word that was used is distressed. This was his boy also and he was greatly distressed. But God spoke to Abraham and said, "Do what Sarah is asking you to do. Send that woman away and that boy because I have blessed that boy and that boy is going to be a great nation." Well, he did exactly that, Abraham. He gave her food, he gave her water, I don't know that he even gave her a donkey to ride on, but he pointed to the desert. He said, "There's the door." And off she went into the wilderness with that little boy.

What a story. Nothing quite like it in the Bible. But here it is today for you and for me to read it and to learn something from it. What am I going to learn from this story today? Listen, friend, God's coming with a blessing to you as a result of hearing this story and believing what God has said and what God has done.

Now, here is Hagar. She's an outcast. She's been rejected. She's refused. She's been taken advantage of and now she's kicked out. What a story. Is God in that? It doesn't sound that way. Abraham, such cruelty to this woman and to your boy. This is your flesh and blood and you're putting him out into the wilderness? Well, as I read this story, I thought, what a situation this woman was in with her little boy.

And this is what else I thought: sometimes we get ourselves into trouble and sometimes life just turns on us and trouble comes. It appeared that life turned on Hagar. She was a slave. She had to do what Sarah and Abraham instructed her or commanded her or forced her to do. Life just seemed to turn on her and now, "Where's the man of God? And look at the mess I'm in."

Has the man of God ever put you in a situation? Well, you're there because God wants to grow your faith and stretch your faith. It may not have been what you wanted, even what God wanted, but God can take that which is wrong or negative and bring beauty out of it. He can take ashes and make a glorious majesty out of it if you give it to God and if you learn the lesson that God has for you.

Friend, listen to me. All things work together for good. Have you heard that scripture before? How many of us really believe it? That was for my good. I accept that. God's dealing with me. God's showing me. God's leading me. God has a blessing for me. Hey, change your language and your words and your faith and grow strong in the Lord and let the blessing... The blessing hasn't come because you haven't accepted that from the Lord yet and looked to God to bring it. Now, no one has ever been in a dire situation like Hagar was in.

Sometimes we get ourselves in these situations. I got a message from a person. She said, "I shouldn't have married this man." Person that used to come to this church lives in another state now. She writes to me about every month, sends a little offering to ChangePoint, $20, $40 a month. Dear soul. She writes to me and she said, "I had to leave him." And she said, "Pastor, it's because of my lack of faith and my lack of prayer. I'm a Christian, he is not a Christian, he never was a Christian. I knew better. I knew better, Pastor Morris, but I married him anyway. He was so nice, but then he became so abusive. I couldn't stand him. I couldn't live with him anymore. I had to leave."

And she's off somewhere far. I don't know what state she's in right now, but she continues to write in to me. I've heard other people say something like, "Pastor, I'm sick today. I know I shouldn't have used alcohol like I used it. I know I shouldn't have used tobacco like I used it. I ate wrong and I didn't do the things that I should have to take care of my body and look at me today. I've done it all to myself."

Friend, I don't know what has happened. Obviously, I don't. But whatever has happened, whether you've done it to yourself or whether life has just turned on you and you are in a terrible place, regardless whether it's your fault or the fault of life, that makes no difference this morning. God is a God of love and mercy and he's going to come when we tell him, repent, look to him and say, "God, I made a mistake," or "God, I'm just living and things all went wrong." Whatever it is, God is here to bless and to help you.

Instead of feeling sorry for yourself and looking back and saying, "I should have, I could have, I would have," no, look to the Lord. He is still the healer of broken lives and broken hearts. Somebody say amen. Amen. This is God's message and God wants you to hear it today, and that's why I'm preaching on it today. Well, she went off into the wilderness and the scripture says she wandered aimlessly. "Where do I go from here?" The sun overhead scorching her, the sun beating upon the sand and reflecting back into her. She ran out of food, she ran out of water. It's over.

How I'll never get back. Friend, if you don't think you're ever going to get back, you are never going to get back. But when you think that God is with you and you accept the situation as from the Lord, you're already back, or at least 99% of the way back. She thought it was all over. You know, there's a hymn in our hymnal... And I'm not going to ask you to sing it. I thought about asking you to sing it, but it's entitled He Giveth More Grace. He giveth more grace when the burden grows greater. Are you listening to me? You've sung it maybe how many times?

He sendeth more strength when the labors increase. To added affliction, he addeth his mercy. To multiplied trials, not one or two trials, but to multiplied trials, his multiplied peace. Oh, this is the part I want you to hear. Here it is. Only has two verses. Are you listening? You've sung it. When we have exhausted the store of our endurance, "I can't take it anymore. I've had enough. I've had enough." When we have exhausted our store of endurance, when our strength has failed ere the day is half done. Here it is: when we reach the end of our hoarded resources, our father's full giving is only begun.

Friend, is the needle on empty today? Someone dropped by yesterday. I was at a service station. He walked over to me. I never saw the man before in my life. And he said something to me and I didn't hear him. I said, "What did you say, sir?" He said, "I'm out of gas." He said, "I need some money. Sir, would you give me some money for gasoline?" So I gave him a little bit of money and then I saw him drive out. I guess he put some gas in.

Friend, some of you are just out of spiritual gasoline today. But look where you are. You're in an oasis even in your desert. You're in the house of God. Can you say praise the Lord? You are where God wants you to be because you are hearing this message from the Lord today. It's God's holy word. So, Hagar, she's wandering in the desert. Now, she's from Egypt and no doubt she was trying to get back to Egypt.

She'd been kicked out of Abraham's house and she wanted to get back to Egypt to her own people. But you get out in the desert, no matter which way you look in the desert, it all looks the same. And pretty soon she completely lost her bearings and she didn't know where she was going. She may have been going in circles just wandering, wandering. Friend, you depend on yourself, you're going to get nowhere. You're going to go in a circle and come right back, have the same thing happen to you again. Same thing happen to you again.

Friend, God has a great lesson of faith and growth for every one of us. And she was wandering until she ran out of food and she ran out of water. "It's death for my son. It's death for me." She ran out of her resources. Now, it was then... it was then... Oh, friend, listen to me today. It was then that God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. When are you going to come to the place of an honest confession: "I can't do it. I can't handle it. My resources are not great enough and I've just exhausted the store of my hoarded resources. I have no more resources at all"?

This is what happened to Hagar. She was just out of resources and she began to sob. And the little boy, a long distance off where she couldn't hear him, she knew where he was under that bush, and he was sobbing. It's terrible that we wait and wait and wait and get to that place. What had happened if she had prayed earlier? I believe God would have led her, answered her prayer. All of that suffering, all of those months, all of those years, however long, she would have been blessed just like we are blessed when we look to the Lord.

And I feel like calling out, "Hagar, Hagar, when are you going to look up?" You see, she was so taken up with what she didn't have. She was so taken up with what happened to her. She couldn't get that memory out of her mind. Who did it to me? Why it happened to me? I don't know why, but it did happen. I didn't do anything to deserve this. And so on and on and on we go looking at what happened, looking at what we don't have.

She was looking at the empty pouch that carried the water. She was looking at the empty pouch that carried the food. "I don't have anything. I'm without. I don't deserve to be without, but I'm without." She was at the end of herself, at the end of her resources. Her attention was focused on what had happened to her. Friend, nobody can go back and change history. Nobody can do that.

There's things that I would change if I could change, with my own family, with my own life. But I can't change history. It's done. But God is the God of today, the God of tomorrow. He is the resurrection and the life. He is the God who does do things. He is the God who gives hope. Friend, why don't you take some of the resources that God has and let God bless you and enjoy your Christian life and your relationship with Jesus? He has it for you.

This lady was sobbing away and her sobbing prayers and the sobbing prayers of that little boy... I'll tell you what happens to parents also happens to parents' children also. You hear me? Yeah, it's a dangerous thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Friend, only God knows what's up ahead. Don't wait until up ahead comes. Turn to God now and let him restore your resources and restore your blessings. And then the Lord opened her eyes, not to see what she didn't have, but to see what she did have.

Do you have anything more than you had before you became a Christian? Do things affect you the same way they used to before you became a Christian? Well, then why on earth did you become a Christian? There's new life in Jesus, friends. There's resurrection and life. Jesus said to the lady at the well, the Samaritan woman, "Whoever drinks of the water from this well..." This is what he was saying, I'm paraphrasing, "...will thirst again and again and again." Friend, it'll keep coming back. It'll keep coming back.

But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but be a well, a fountain of living water springing up into everlasting life. And then on that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and with a loud voice... King James says he cried with a loud voice. Not a soft whisper. He wants people to hear the message he has. With a loud voice he said, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. For out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of life, rivers of living water, streams in the desert," he says.

Wow. This is his promise to God's people and you're God's people and he's promising you greatness today. But notice this. Please notice this and you've heard me say this before and I'll continue to say it. The angel came and spoke to her. The second thing that happened, her eyes were opened. It is the spoken word that we ignore that keeps our eyes closed to the resources that God has. But when God speaks, faith comes. Our eyes are opened. And then she filled the pouch with water, the skin with water, and she took it and she gave it to her son and he drank and there was refreshing. Life became new and beautiful and wonderful again.

Angels watching over me. Jesus was at the tomb or in the tomb. The stone was over the tomb. It had the appearance to the Roman government that it was all over. Even the disciples, they thought it was all over. Jesus was dead. It was gone. Yes, if your Jesus is dead, you're not going to rise from where you are. But there were angels at that tomb. Soon the earth is going to shake. Soon the stone is going to roll away. Soon Jesus is going to step forth in transcending majesty and glory. The soldiers are going to fall like dead men. God knows how to overcome with you and for you, friend.

Mary was crying. "Where have they taken him? Where have they laid my Lord?" She looked at him and then she turned back and looked at the tomb. She kept looking at the tomb, at the wrong, at what seemingly went wrong. Friend, listen to me. God is still in charge and if something has gone wrong, it's because he allowed it to go wrong for our good and for our blessing. And then when she turned after she heard... Friend, you must hear first. Hagar had to hear the angel's voice. Mary had to hear the voice of Jesus. And then when she heard him speak her name, she said, "Rabboni."

But hearing, hearing, have you heard? Has it resonated? Has it gotten in? If so, a marvelous change has taken place. Your resource has come and that resource is Jesus, looking to Jesus. Praise the Lord forevermore. He's your God and Savior. Let's bow before him.

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